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HQs:
Rune Priest
-JotWW
-Storm Caller
100

Bjorn, the Fell-Handed
-Plasma Cannon
270

Elites:
Dreadnought
-Twin Linked Auto cannon
-Twin Linked Auto cannon
125

Dreadnought
-Twin Linked Auto cannon
-Twin Linked Auto cannon
125

Troops:
Grey Hunters (5)
-Melta
-Razorback w/ Lascanon&Twin-linked plasma gun
155

Grey Hunters (5)
-Melta
-Razorback w/ Lascanon&Twin-linked plasma gun
155

Grey Hunters (5)
-Melta
-Razorback w/ Lascanon&Twin-linked plasma gun
155

Grey Hunters (5)
-Razorback w/ Lascanon&Twin-linked plasma gun
-Flamer
150

Fast:
Land Speeder Typhoon
-Cyclone Missile Launcher
90

Land Speeder Typhoon
-Cyclone Missile Launcher
90

Land Speeder Typhoon
-Cyclone Missile Launcher
90

Heavy:
Long Fangs (6)
-Missile Launcher x5
-Razorback w/ Lascanon&Twin-linked plasma gun
215

Long Fangs (6)
-Missile Launcher x5
140

Long Fangs (6)
-Missile Launcher x5
140

21x Missile Shots between 9 targets, 5x Lascannons, 5x Twin-Linked Plasmaguns, 1x Plasma Cannon, and 8x Twin-Linked Auto cannon shots a turn.

Bjorn provides an 75%(est.) chance to go first, and along with the dreads, double as counter assault units. They can be used to tie up mobs of boyz, bloodcrushers, berserkers etc. (Credit to Reecius who wrote up an excellent guide on using Bjorn).

Thoughts? I'm curious how it would perform vs other top gunline armies such as Mech IG or Mechdar.

The army looks pretty evil to me. The only think that makes it slightly weak is that your four troops only make up a total of 20 models AND offer up easy kills points. Basically your army kills the enemy really good but its potential to actually take objectives and not hand out kill points is relatively weak. My personal advice would be to drop a couple of razorback here and there and then flesh out two of your grey hunter packs to full size squads with rhinos.


Against eldar and IQ gunlines I think you should do fairly well, they have to be in line of sight after all to shoot you

The only real weakness is the same as before, since I would expect those armies not to offer up KPs as easily while having way more potential for capping objectives. Mostly though id imagine the games would end in bonecrunching draws with like three models left on the board at the end.

Deliverance wrote:
The army looks pretty evil to me. The only think that makes it slightly weak is that your four troops only make up a total of 20 models AND offer up easy kills points. Basically your army kills the enemy really good but its potential to actually take objectives and not hand out kill points is relatively weak. My personal advice would be to drop a couple of razorback here and there and then flesh out two of your grey hunter packs to full size squads with rhinos.


Against eldar and IQ gunlines I think you should do fairly well, they have to be in line of sight after all to shoot you

The only real weakness is the same as before, since I would expect those armies not to offer up KPs as easily while having way more potential for capping objectives. Mostly though id imagine the games would end in bonecrunching draws with like three models left on the board at the end.

Thanks for the critique Deliverance. The list is actually very similar to Reecius's Bjorn wolves on here who has great success with them in the tournament scene. He runs the same exact number of troops and fares well in all mission types.

I think the biggest problem you are going to have is deathwing DA. Hardly any survivable ap2. Just depends on how well you do with your 5+ saves...

Other than that, a stout list.

Looks like a solid list. I dont think you need more troops at all, 4 squads of 5 will work wonders in this list. All mech armies will instantly blanche at the sight of this army.

Only critism is slightly spammy and unfluffy, but then most competitve lists are!

Overall, nice job, not many lists are gonna be looking dangerous after a first turn against this beast!

Target saturation and scoring models look fine, but Bjorn is the only counter-assault you have between the three Dreads. If you want Counter-Assault, give them Plasma Cannons and Heavy Flamers. That way they can be a dedicated anti-infantry "unit" and still lock things in combat and have a fighting chance.

You should not have an issue in objective based games, but you do have a very large number of kill points. 19 is a lot, even for a 2k game. You will need to be careful how you position your units, and if you lose a transport it's better for the unit inside to hunker down someplace out of LoS, and go to ground if your opponent has ordnance and the like.

Hope that helps!

imweasel wrote:I think the biggest problem you are going to have is deathwing DA. Hardly any survivable ap2. Just depends on how well you do with your 5+ saves...

Other than that, a stout list.

Yes, that is a tough army. If my razorbacks survive then it is a lot of rapid fire plasmas. Against a deathwing full terminator army, I would be able to have an insane amount of small blasts though which would provide the volume of fire to take down 2+ saves.

DawnRaid7 wrote:Looks like a solid list. I dont think you need more troops at all, 4 squads of 5 will work wonders in this list. All mech armies will instantly blanche at the sight of this army.

Only critism is slightly spammy and unfluffy, but then most competitve lists are!

Overall, nice job, not many lists are gonna be looking dangerous after a first turn against this beast!

Indeed, this list is definitely not going to be played in friendly matches! Only against other WAAC players.

I think it's greatest strengths are it's high chance to go first and ability to fire high str shots at so many different targets.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Aldarionn wrote:Target saturation and scoring models look fine, but Bjorn is the only counter-assault you have between the three Dreads. If you want Counter-Assault, give them Plasma Cannons and Heavy Flamers. That way they can be a dedicated anti-infantry "unit" and still lock things in combat and have a fighting chance.

You should not have an issue in objective based games, but you do have a very large number of kill points. 19 is a lot, even for a 2k game. You will need to be careful how you position your units, and if you lose a transport it's better for the unit inside to hunker down someplace out of LoS, and go to ground if your opponent has ordnance and the like.

Hope that helps!

Yeah, I mentioned counter-assault because they originally had heavy flamers, I only recently changed them to auto cannons to further the gunline theme.

Do you think it would be better to have them with plasma cannons? It would allow me to tackle termies easier and like you said have 3 counter-assault units. However I lose 8 str7 twin linked shots every turn. Weaker vs mech but stronger vs assault and termies.

To be honest, I don't think all those autocannons will be needed. The Long Fangs splitting fire is gonna down most transports, and even the lascannons are slightly overkill. Maybe take 1 autocannon, one plasma/ heavy flamer?

Excellent list! I think you will find that you crush most people with it in short order.

In regards to the scoring units, I have actually dropped down to 3. 4 is great though and it leaves you more room for error, but if you do want to drop down you may find that it works out just fine for you.

My only critique falls inline with what aldarion was saying. I find I need the Dreads with DCCW's for counter assault as that is your biggest weakness with this type of army. Bjorn is a stud in combat but he is only one model. My list now has 4 dreads (I swapped a troop for another dread) and they can all fight in combat which I find to be a really big gap filler in the list.

Also, consider some assault cannon razorbacks. The assault cannon is a great weapon and really adds a lot to the list as it is so versatile.

But on the whole, rock solid. Lambadomy uses a list like this too, so you may want to ask him for some tips as he has done really well with it, too.

As for general tactics and tips, the army is generally straight forward to play. Bjorn gives you the edge with alpha striking so his role is pretty obvious. Make sure to keep him near the fangs in most cases for the leadership reroll and for counter assault. Use him to shoot primarily, don't run him off on his own as that is how he gets killed. You will be able to out-shoot any other army, so don't worry about that. Keep Bjorn close to home and position him to counter assault. The same goes with the other dreads. Even with the auto-cannons, they are still great for tar-pitting units. Oh, and don't forget, in objective missions Bjorn can be used to create another objective which has actually won me games before! Make sure to keep a troop near him to take advantage of this and to make sure he doesn't give up extra KPs in KP missions.

I would put the Long Fangs in the razorbacks as in DoW missions you want to be able to get them into a good firing position as fast as possible. In other deployment types, the Grey hunters can just hop into the razorbacks or reserve and get into them later in the game. I actually prefer the twin las cannon as I tend to stay back at max range, but that is just my opinion, the las/plas back is great.

Target priority is really important. You need to kill the units that are the biggest threat to you, first. Anything that can take out Fangs needs to die, really quickly. Ignore targets that aren't immediate threats and focus on killing things that can hurt you. Hydras, Lootas, Typhoons, War Walkers, Venoms, etc.

Also, deployment is really important with this army. You almost always want to castle up to create over-lapping fields of fire. You want to create a zone of death where you will have overwhelming firepower against anything that comes into range. You rarely will ever spread out baring a crazy mission or certain army types like Daemons.

You need to create cascading cover-saves. Use the Preds to give cover to the dreads to the Typhoons. They all fit nicely so as to provide cover to the units behind. Make sure to put the Rune Priest in such a way as to provide the most units possible with a cover save from storm caller. This helps a ton.

Lastly, when playing against assault armies, don't be afraid to deploy on your back board edge. This gives you the most real estate between you and your opponent which maximizes the amount of time you have to shoot up your enemy. And in a pinch, you can toss your grey hunters and even long fangs into a fight and still have good odds of pulling off the win.

Have fun with the army and let us know how you do with it! I have won quite a few tournaments with mine and I got my golden ticket with it, so I think you will really enjoy how well it plays.

As for terminator armies being a problem? Maybe, I have played a few terminator lists and never lost to them. You force a lot of saves with frags and flak fire, but Deathwing would be problematic. I think you'd be OK, though.

Skelly wrote:Yes, that is a tough army. If my razorbacks survive then it is a lot of rapid fire plasmas. Against a deathwing full terminator army, I would be able to have an insane amount of small blasts though which would provide the volume of fire to take down 2+ saves.

You would think, but that's not the case. Due to the large bases, you are lucky to get 3 in a direct hit. More often than not, you are better off just shooting krak.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Reecius wrote:As for terminator armies being a problem? Maybe, I have played a few terminator lists and never lost to them. You force a lot of saves with frags and flak fire, but Deathwing would be problematic. I think you'd be OK, though.

The biggest problem is you need to 'bubble wrap' your long fangs vs deathwing. With few bodies to throw in the way, it can be difficult to do. Belial's group will have +1 attack and FNP. Frags won't do much to that, so you are forced to fire krak's.

It's one of the worst matchups for space wolves atm.

imweasel wrote:

Skelly wrote:Yes, that is a tough army. If my razorbacks survive then it is a lot of rapid fire plasmas. Against a deathwing full terminator army, I would be able to have an insane amount of small blasts though which would provide the volume of fire to take down 2+ saves.

You would think, but that's not the case. Due to the large bases, you are lucky to get 3 in a direct hit. More often than not, you are better off just shooting krak.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Reecius wrote:As for terminator armies being a problem? Maybe, I have played a few terminator lists and never lost to them. You force a lot of saves with frags and flak fire, but Deathwing would be problematic. I think you'd be OK, though.

The biggest problem is you need to 'bubble wrap' your long fangs vs deathwing. With few bodies to throw in the way, it can be difficult to do. Belial's group will have +1 attack and FNP. Frags won't do much to that, so you are forced to fire krak's.

It's one of the worst matchups for space wolves atm.

I would pray for 3 per hit. 21x3=63 hits? yes please

Of course I know it won't be that much as removed models would lessen the amount hit over time, but I dont think krak would be better if the squads are still full size.

As for deathwing being one of the worst matchups I can see why. Perhaps 4 dreads would be able to tie them up long enough to win.

Skelly wrote:I would pray for 3 per hit. 21x3=63 hits? yes please

Of course I know it won't be that much as removed models would lessen the amount hit over time, but I dont think krak would be better if the squads are still full size.

As for deathwing being one of the worst matchups I can see why. Perhaps 4 dreads would be able to tie them up long enough to win.

Wishful thinking won't win to many games. More realistically you will get 2 with a direct hit, which will happen about 50 percent of the time. So figure 20 hits. You will probably only get about 5 more hits from the rest that miss and scatter.

So figure you will get around 12 wounds give or take. You get almost the same from krak. Frags can get you more in certain situations, just not reliably so.

4 dreads are not going to slow down one squad of termies. Perhaps if you got 2 dreads on a single unit you could slow them down. Just remember, the typical unit will swing 10 times (15 on the charge), hitting 5 (7 on the charge) times and generating an easy 2-3 damage rolls. Not good odds for a dread that on average will net .33 to .5 dead termies per assault phase. It gets slightly worse for the dread if one termie just replaces the power weapon with a chain fist.

It's just a bad matchup. The only real way you could counter it, would be take a logan/termie death star. Very expensive. It's solid. I just don't know how useful it would be vs other armies.

@imweasel
Bubblewrap the fangs? I don't think that would be an issue. You have plenty of tanks to charge block and DW is so slow, they will take at least 3 turns to get to you unless they deepstrike. If they deepstrike, they're going to shoot once and get wasted by flak fire. VoF kills termies w/ SS/TH and missile wolves can put a lot of wounds down.

Like skelly said, you tie up the terminator squads with dreads. Bjorn especially will have very good odds to take a unit out in a few turns of combat.

And I personally wouldn't even bother shooting at the belial command squad of termies. They are the hardest target to break, so no point in wasting shots on them until other targets (with equal firepower) are destroyed.

DW is slow as molasses. By the time they get to you the will be badly shot up and the dreads will be able to really deliver a hard hit.

I agree though, that it is a tough match up for sure. I have played shrike terminators with my missile wolves and it was tough. That list fleets, obviously, but there are no shots coming in at you.

It would be a difficult game but not un-winnable by any means.

Reecius wrote:@imweasel
Bubblewrap the fangs? I don't think that would be an issue. You have plenty of tanks to charge block and DW is so slow, they will take at least 3 turns to get to you unless they deepstrike. If they deepstrike, they're going to shoot once and get wasted by flak fire. VoF kills termies w/ SS/TH and missile wolves can put a lot of wounds down.

Like skelly said, you tie up the terminator squads with dreads. Bjorn especially will have very good odds to take a unit out in a few turns of combat.

And I personally wouldn't even bother shooting at the belial command squad of termies. They are the hardest target to break, so no point in wasting shots on them until other targets (with equal firepower) are destroyed.

DW is slow as molasses. By the time they get to you the will be badly shot up and the dreads will be able to really deliver a hard hit.

I agree though, that it is a tough match up for sure. I have played shrike terminators with my missile wolves and it was tough. That list fleets, obviously, but there are no shots coming in at you.

It would be a difficult game but not un-winnable by any means.

If 'badly shot up' you mean you managed to kill 8-10 termies before they eat you, then yes, you could consider that 'badly shot up'. Vehicles won't even slow down DA as they are shooting a minimum of 12 missiles per turn (and possibly more if they take speeders and dreads themselves).

It's not un-winnable. It's just a bad match up and it is stacked against you. Bjorn is the only road block you have. I don't know how he stops 6 squads by himself in time. You can kill about 8-10 termies on average with shooting. That still leaves 3 squads rampaging through your lines.

You do have some mobility, but DA can throw an impressive amount of missiles themselves with far less fear of losing effectiveness as rapidly as the space wolf player will.

And the dreads will not be able to deliver a hard hit. On average, they generate .33 to .5 dead termies per assault phase while taking 2-3 damage rolls themselves per assault phase. That's not a sustainable attrition rate at all.

By the way, if they deep strike in, they won't be shooting. They will just run to spread themselves out so they don't get frag'ed.

Personally, I would just deep strike belial's squad (preferably close to the long fangs) but close to anything that I think I could assault.

Hahaha, well it sounds like you've already played it out! And here I thought we were just discussing theory

From having played termie lists in reality many times I would say that yes, it is a tough match, but that doesn't mean much, really. Smart play mitigates a lot of the disadvantages, as do all of the other variables in a real game such as terrain and mission.

And where are you getting 8-10 termies from shooting? Haha, there are so many variables in a situation like this that any figure you throw out is going to be extremely vague at best.

Ah who cares, I get so sick of arguing things like this on the net as ultimately theory proves nothing and it almost always devolves into a contest of wills as opposed to an actual discussion. You are free to hold whatever opinion you choose, and I do agree that that is a tough match, but not the worst for missile wolves by any means. I know from experience that missile wolves can beat terminator lists and would not be overly concerned about this match up in anything but KPs, which would be a really tough game.

At the end of the day, one bad match-up against a list that is not very popular at present would not stop me from bringing wolves to a tournament or changing the list. YMMV.

Reecius wrote:Hahaha, well it sounds like you've already played it out! And here I thought we were just discussing theory

I have. It's been both decent and bad, but it is a bad match up.

Reecius wrote:From having played termie lists in reality many times I would say that yes, it is a tough match, but that doesn't mean much, really. Smart play mitigates a lot of the disadvantages, as do all of the other variables in a real game such as terrain and mission.

Of course.

Reecius wrote:And where are you getting 8-10 termies from shooting? Haha, there are so many variables in a situation like this that any figure you throw out is going to be extremely vague at best.

So you are saying you should get more? Less? When discussing things like this, it's better to discuss averages than 'vague'.

Reecius wrote:Ah who cares, I get so sick of arguing things like this on the net as ultimately theory proves nothing and it almost always devolves into a contest of wills as opposed to an actual discussion. You are free to hold whatever opinion you choose, and I do agree that that is a tough match, but not the worst for missile wolves by any means. I know from experience that missile wolves can beat terminator lists and would not be overly concerned about this match up in anything but KPs, which would be a really tough game.

I never have stated that it's unwinnable. It's a bad matchup. Period. YMMV.

Reecius wrote:At the end of the day, one bad match-up against a list that is not very popular at present would not stop me from bringing wolves to a tournament or changing the list. YMMV.

It wouldn't stop me either. But it will gain popularity (nob bikers anyone?) and it should not be ignored.

Reecius wrote:At the end of the day, one bad match-up against a list that is not very popular at present would not stop me from bringing wolves to a tournament or changing the list. YMMV.

It wouldn't stop me either. But it will gain popularity (nob bikers anyone?) and it should not be ignored.

I would actually drop the Autocannon Dreads to Plasma Heavy Flamer Dreads. That'll net you 2 more Plasma Cannons and help you with tying up/killing off Terminators.

Other than that, you really don't need to make many other changes.

Edited list based on comments from everyone. Dropped a grey hunter squad and one missile launcher longfang, moved razorbacks to long fangs for deployment, and added +1 Dreadnought and changed all of their weapons to plasma cannons and added 2 heavy flamers.

I really like the list now, thanks guys! Comes out to exactly 2000:

HQs:
Rune Priest
-JotWW
-Storm Caller
100

Bjorn, the Fell-Handed
-Plasma Cannon
270

Elites:
Dreadnought
-Plasma Cannon
-Heavy Flamer
125

Dreadnought
-Plasma Cannon
-Heavy Flamer
125

Dreadnought
-Plasma Cannon
115

Troops:
Grey Hunters (5)
-Flamer
-Razorback w/ Lascanon&Twin-linked plasma gun
150

Grey Hunters (5)
-Flamer
-Razorback w/ Lascanon&Twin-linked plasma gun
150

Grey Hunters (5)
-Flamer
75

Fast:
Land Speeder Typhoon
-Cyclone Missile Launcher
90

Land Speeder Typhoon
-Cyclone Missile Launcher
90

Land Speeder Typhoon
-Cyclone Missile Launcher
90

Heavy:
Long Fangs (6)
-Missile Launcher x5
-Razorback w/ Lascanon&Twin-linked plasma gun
215

Long Fangs (6)
-Missile Launcher x5
-Razorback w/ Lascanon&Twin-linked plasma gun
215

Long Fangs (5)
-Missile Launcher x4
-Razorback w/ Lascanon&Twin-linked plasma gun
190

Let us know how it works!